In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a smaller number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of cherry tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘SWEET FRUITFUL’.
During the spring of 2000 I gathered fruit from several different unnamed cherry seedlings in my experimental orchard near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). The seeds from this fruit were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse, and upon reaching dormancy transplanted to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard described above. During the fruit evaluation season of 2004 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of cherry tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Colt’ (unpatented) rootstock, upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is most similar to the ‘Glenred’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 12,859) cherry by producing cherries that are large in size, oblate in shape, firm in texture, dark red in skin color, red in flesh color, and sweet in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by blooming about three days later, by being self-fruitful instead of self-sterile, and by producing cherries that ripen about seven days later.